Event, Sept 24: Afghanistan – Spotlight on ‘Gender Apartheid’

The Taliban’s 2021 resurgence in Afghanistan has intenstified concerns about gender apartheid in the country.

International feminist organisations have appealed for governments worldwide to treat the Taliban’s oppression and erasure of women from society “as a severe, institutionalised violation of human rights and as an international crime”.

To discuss the ongoing challenges women and girls face in Afghanistan, Sapan is hosting a webinar titled Country Focus: Afghanistan – Spotlight on ‘Gender Apartheid’, in collaboration with Tasveer.

Date: 24 September 2023, Sunday

Time: 8 am PDT / 11 am ET / 4 pm UKT / 8 pm PKT / 8:30 pm IST / 8:45 PM NPT / 9 pm BDT

Speakers include:

Mahbouba Seraj, Afghan journalist, radio broadcaster, educationist and women’s rights activist; nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize 2023
Kathy Gannon, multiple award-winning journalist and author who covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Associated Press for 35 years
Kreshma Fakhri, Afghan journalist, radio producer and volunteer manager at Zan Times, a women-led media organisation that focuses on human rights’ issues in Afghanistan
Farida Nekzad, senior journalist and media trainer, founder of Center for the Protection of Afghan Women Journalists in Afghanistan
Sola Mahfouz, Afghan scientist, activist and coauthor of Defiant Dreams: The Journey of an Afghan Girl Who Risked Everything for Education (2023)

The discussion moderator is Wazhma Frogh, Afghan women’s rights activist and peacebuilder specialising in international law, gender and community development. Physician and rights activist Fauzia Deeba from Quetta will host the event.

why this matters

Since 2021, the Taliban have issued over 100 edicts stripping Afghan women and girls of their most basic human rights and opportunities. These orders encompass multiple aspects of women’s lives, restricting their movement, clothing, education and occupation, to name a few.

In over a dozen provinces, girls above age 10 are no longer allowed to pursue education. Previously, women in various provinces were banned from attending universities, visiting restaurants, medical clinics, graveyards, parks, gyms, and even the UNESCO World Heritage site, Band-e-Amir national park.

This is in addition to other setbacks for girls and women in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover: beauty salons and karate clubs were forced to close, Afghan female staff were barred from work at the UN, dental clinics run by women shut down in Ghazni, women’s divorce rights diluted, and female flight attendants and female finance-ministry employees fired. Women can no longer be issued driving licences.

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan stated that the Taliban’s “large-scale systematic violations of women’s and girls’ fundamental rights in Afghanistan … [constitute] gender persecution and an institutionalized framework of gender apartheid.”

what can we do?

Through this event we hope to raise global awareness about the gender apartheid in Afghanistan, and to create a platform for open and constructive dialogue among experts, activists, and participants to discuss the root causes of the issue and potential solutions.

We will also discuss the roles and responsibilities of international organisations and NGOs in addressing gender apartheid in Afghanistan.

This is the second in Sapan’s Country Focus series, the first being our October 2022 discussion on Sri Lanka.

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